There could have been no greater difference between a decent President Obama saying goodbye to the (American) people – and the disgusting performance by Trump. Fortunately, plenty journalists outside the US refused to be fooled by what Trump was up to.

“No journalists applauding Trump”, reported a few on European media, while Trump walked center stage.Quite right: most of those present were Trump staff members to ensure there was laughter and applause at the right moment. A few journalists remarked: “As usual: stealing the limelight from President Obama to pester him. Rather pathetic”.

Earlier that morning, for Europeans, there had been the stunning news about the content of an attachment. Not that this news surprises. Anybody ever having heard about and read up on Trump, is fully aware what kind of guy this is, and what he and his cronies truly stand for.

So the Russians know too much of what Trump likes to hide? So the Russians are able to blackmail him and his cronies and all those friends whom he promoted to important political, influential, crucial jobs? So the Russians can pull, or are already pulling the strings of puppet president-to-be Trump? So the Russians will now be able to have a say into the way the US functions and works, will be made “great again” – through Trump, his family members, his cronies, the Republican party?

Why the surprise?
Anybody with more than one functioning brain cell could and should have seen this coming. Well before the US election got on the way.

Great the FBI – among others – found time to dig this up and start shining a torch on it at last.
But this “news” was uncovered by a former MI6 person – not even by US intelligence agencies, mind. Worse: this “news” was humming around for months between the former MI6 person, various intelligence services, ambassadors, and plenty others.

The FBI finally handed over a synopsis as an attachment to papers dealing with the Russian hacks. Those hacks Trump remained in denial about for ages – remember?

So how come the FBI did find time to bring up Hillary Clinton’s mails time and again during the recent election campaign – yet failed to dig up this issue?

The isue is more than a sex tape, possible black mail, hotel apartments, intensive information exchanges between the Trump team and folks in Russia, Russian hacks, Russian attempts to influence the US election, Trump’s business interests and Russia, Trump’s visits to Russia, the usual long-term view and investment practices of the KGB, and worse.

And one is supposed to believe, that despite all this humming around for ages, in various parts of the world, during the election campaign … no US intelligence service had an inkling of what is one of the first mega-scandals of the Trump-for-President era?

Sounds like the US election was rigged in various ways.

Some optimists may claim, the US will only be stuck with this kind of muck for four years. Well, four years are going to seem like forever. Trump is not even sworn in and the damage he has caused is already great. “Making America great” indeed!

Is Trump the only one to blame?
What about the party through which he got elected? Surely Republicans can also be blamed? It is this party, its politicians and power-brokers, who should have realized what they got their country and people into. They have been showing a total lack of vision and inability to work towards a better future for their people and country, by judging it more important to hamper Obama for a couple of years and then offer Trump as an alternative.

So who was caught lying in front of the cameras?
So who was caught producing false news at that very moment?

Trump denying journalists the right to ask questions also showed, once he is sworn in, the US will no longer have a free press. This time, it was CNN. Undoubtedly, the Washington Post and other national and international media, daring to be critical of Trump, will be treated in a similarly disgusting manner.

Imagine four years of this and worse. One can only conclude that what is happening in the US right now, is what Russia and similar powers have always aimed at: the discrediting of democratic governments and organizations, the destabilizing of the West.

What is happening in the US right now, is Russia’s wet dream come true.